Love at First Fight
by ToManyLetters
Summary: After accidentally knocking her books over, Harry Potter and enemy Pansy Parkinson share a detention together. She is unusually emotional. After repeated inquiries, something a little more than bitter hate and rivalry is revealed. [Oneshot.]


Today, of all days, had not been good. As if it weren't enough to have her cauldron's contents erupt on her during a most annoying Potions lesson, someone had just ran into her, knocking her books from her hands over the handrail and down to the first floor.

She was on the fifth, and to make matters worse, her already failing quill had embedded itself into her hand and broke.

"Sorry," said a quiet, distracted voice from the boy in front of her. "Accio."

Her books zoomed into his hands. Reaching to take them from him, she looked up at her attacker's face. She looked into his eyes. He was legitimately sorry, but she was a Slytherin. She could not ever let a Gryffindor get away with this.

"Watch it, Potter!" she spat, forcing the books from his loose grip.

Harry looked up at her. She wasn't at all ugly... except when she squished her face together like an angry pug. Fighting the urge to dump the remainder of her things back over the edge, he simply shook his head and made to walk away.

She tripped him.

"I said watch it, Potter." she groaned. Seeing a furious Professor McGonagall charging her way, she pretended to be helping him up.

"Don't touch me, Parkinson!" he growled, forcing her arm away from her seemingly kind gesture. He hated being foul to people who were acting kindly... but Harry knew this was just that. An act.

"Mr. Potter, you are not to use magic in the corridors. Five points from Gryffindor and a night of detention."

She spun, casting a cold, hardened expression that could have stiffened even the glaciers of Antarctica.

"Ms. Parkinson. Despite your quick thinking and performance, I saw what you did. Five points from Slytherin."

"She had a..." started Harry, defending someone he despised.

"Silence, Potter!"

"He knocked my things over, you half-wit!" griped Pansy, angered over the loss of points for Slytherin. This day was just getting worse and worse.

"A detention for you too, I think, Ms. Parkinson." snapped McGonagall. "My office at seven-thirty." she added pointing to each of them in turn, "Be late and I'll give you detention for the rest of the semester."

As Professor McGonagall stormed away, Pansy sighed aloud. Angrily shoving his book into his chest, Pansy turned and started to stomp away.

"Fancy seeing you tonight." said Harry, very sarcastically. Even with her back facing him, he could see she was livid.

"Ooooooh!" huffed Pansy, flying down the steps as Harry laughed all the way to Divination.

* * *

After receiving an additional detention from her charms professor for being late, Pansy was absolutely tired of this day. It needed to end. 

Leaving the Great Hall just before seven-fifteen, Pansy walked toward her detention. The thought of spending the entire night locked in some office with Potter infuriated her beyond what she was feeling already. She made a mental note to make his detention hell, as he would surely do for her.

Walking into her transfiguration teacher's office, she hid all her fury and stood, along side that _moron, _in her office.

"You will be cleaning everything in my office." said Professor McGonagall. "Muggle style." she summoned their wands away from them, tucking them neatly into her pajama pockets.

"You'll get your wands upon completion." she grinned, seeing the look on their faces, "Now, get to it!"

Harry turned to glare at Pansy,

"It's your fault you know, if..." he began.

"Don't you even start on me!" Pansy spat, tears filling her eyes, as she grabbed a rag and threw it in his face. "I've had a bad enough day as it is with out some Gryffindor jerk beating me into the ground. Just shut your damned mouth." she grabbed another rag and grudgingly took to cleaning the House cup.

Harry just stood, staring at the Slytherin before him. He had known her for two and a half years, and seeing her in anything but a sassy mood was new to him. He almost felt sorry for her. _Almost._

Picking up a washcloth of his own, he began to clean a trophy on the opposite side of the room.

After several hours, only two things remained to be cleaned. The glass shelves next to McGonagall's desk. Pansy already was cleaning the leftmost shelf.

Stopping mid-wipe, Pansy turned to Harry.

"That shelf won't clean itself." she huffed.

Harry didn't want to move, and, so, he stood still.

Nearly getting lost in his eyes, Pansy turned back to her shelf and continued wiping it down. What had happened to making his detention hell?

She sighed. She felt strange. Something inside her wanted to like him... the rest of it wanted to kill him. Wanting desperately to end the day with a peaceful rest, she turned to him once again.

"I won't bite, you know." she said softly.

"News to me." he mumbled, walking cautiously to the last shelf. Pansy's eyes moved carefully, watching as Harry returned to work.

Harry looked at Pansy. She was still looking at him. She actually looked hurt. Catching his eyes, she turned quickly and lowered her head.

Something was wrong here.

"Alright! Spill it! What's wrong with you!?" Harry growled. "You've been acting completely out of character since I got here!"

_("Could it be that the writer just sucks?" said the Narrator humorously.)_

"Why do you care?" said Pansy in a semi-composed, ever so sour voice.

Harry wondered the same thing to himself. _Why did he care? _She was a Slytherin. Harry shook his head,

"Nevermind." he said, and finished the last of his detention.

* * *

"She was behaving really strangely." Harry said quietly to Hermione over breakfast the next morning. "If I were any dafter, I'd swear she has feelings." 

Hermione only rolled her eyes.

"She actually looked hurt!" Harry said a little loudly.

Ron laughed.

"Why do you care?" giggled Ron through a mouthful of egg.

Harry didn't answer. All three of them were quiet for several minutes.

"She is human." said Hermione suddenly.

"Huh?" grunted Ron, sausage dangling from his chin.

"Just because she's a Slytherin," she said slowly, "doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings."

Harry and Ron looked at one another. What the heck was Hermione saying?

"Of course it does." said Ron, laughing slightly. Ignoring Ron, Hermione continued.

"She's just worried about what happened to Malfoy yesterday during Care of Magical Creatures." Hermione explained. "Don't let it bother you, Harry."

Ron's sides hurt. He was laughing that hard.

"Really? There's not even a sign of the damage, Hermione. He's just faking."

Hermione slammed her spoon to the table, breathed deeply, then turned to Ron.

"She doesn't think so. And because of that, she's worried."

"Whatever." said Ron, spearing another sausage patty with his syrup-covered fork.

* * *

Walking alone out of Charms class, Harry was shoved mercilessly into the door frame. 

"What did you do to her, Potter?" growled Malfoy, shoving into him again.

"Huh?" Harry choked, rather confused.

"What did you do to Pansy?" he fussed, slamming him once again against the cold stone of the door frame.

"To whom?" asked Harry stupidly.

Again, he was slammed into the door frame.

"Oh! Parkinson." said Harry, knowledge now flooding through him. "Nothing, actually. We just had detention together. She really wasn't acting like herself."

He didn't know why he was telling Draco this... but, he thought, that Draco would be the one most likely to deal with it. Harry beat himself over his head in his mind.

Why _did _he care?

Draco released his hold on Harry, spinning him around roughly to face him.

"What did you do to her?" he growled, showing his teeth as they remained tightly clenched.

"I told you. I didn't do anything. She was acting odd even..." Harry was cut off by an angry Professor Flitwick.

"No fighting in the halls, you two! Detention for each of you tonight and ten points from each of your houses."

* * *

Another night of detention. 

Wonderful.

And he would be spending it with Draco Malfoy.

Even better.

As he walked through the doors of Professor Flitwick's office to report for detention, the door smashed into his face.

Putting one hand to his now throbbing and likely bleeding face, and pushing gently on the door with the other, Harry entered the room to see an amused Malfoy. Tonight would be hell.

And so it was. Flitwick had left them to their work. Disemboweling frogs for charmwork the following day was absolutely grotesque. Three hours into the charade, the door opened. Harry hoped so desperately that it was his charms teacher letting him go.

Instead of a short, old man waddling through the door, a small, cutesy girl walked through, seemingly uncertain of her surroundings.

"Draco?" she queried softly.

"Yes, Pans?" he replied. Pansy's eyes strayed from Draco's and caught sight of Harry.

Panic leapt through her. She spun around and left the room crying.

A fist came flying at Harry, catching his already throbbing nose.

* * *

Another hour passed in the detention. Harry's nose, almost certainly broken, had finally stopped bleeding. Pulling on the insides of his thousandth frog, Harry turned to Draco, 

"She really has been acting strangely." said Harry finally. Harry half-expected Draco to take a swing for his nose again, but instead mumbled a response,

"She really has."

"I didn't do anything to her, you know."

"I know." said Draco grudgingly.

"She had a really bad day yesterday based on what she told me." said Harry softly. He couldn't believe he was talking to an enemy about _another _enemy in an almost concerned way.

"Why would she talk to you about her day?" spat Draco, his frog flying from his table.

"She didn't so much talk," began Harry, "As vent at me."

Draco merely mhmmed and returned to his frogs.

* * *

Pansy's emotional mood didn't seem to change much at all. Even after Christmas, she still seemed very down. 

Harry, watching his Potions partner carefully, (Pansy had been assigned to him as Draco had been excused from class... Snape hated having to resort to Draco's runner up...) had forgotten to secure his fladrock stool properly before placing it on the table, and, as such, it shot off, scorching a very angry Professor Snape's eyebrows.

Snape charged toward Harry's table, fuming.

"Didn't I tell you to place it in a glass jar before it exploded!?" he growled.

Harry opened his mouth to speak... but Pansy spoke instead.

"I'm sorry, Professor, I forgot." her shoulders sank. She was lying. Lying for _Harry. _Something was definitely wrong with her. Accepting her words, Snape returned to his table.

"What's wrong with you?" whispered Harry.

"What?" cried Pansy softly, her lip quivering ever so slightly. She looked extremely hurt.

"You just defended me. He would have given me detention, yet you stuck up for me!"

Pansy didn't turn to look at him, but distracted herself with her potion.

"You've been extremely distracted for months! What's wrong with you?" Harry inquired not all too kindly.

"Draco...," she sobbed, "... his injury... is... just getting worse."

"Don't give me that cods wallop. You know just as well as I do that he's faking it."

Pansy turned to Harry, tears streaming down her face.

"He is not..."

"Is too."

Pansy turned back to her potion and continued to sob. She began to add sickleseed instead of leek to her potion.

Harry reached for her hand to stop her.

"Don't." he said kindly, despite his efforts to sound otherwise. "Leeks go in first." he pointed to the board. She smiled weakly and giggled slightly, wiping a tear from her eye with her wrist.

"Thank you." she said softly, taking his hand away from her own. As she touched it, she felt a shiver run down her spine. She knew just then what she had been feeling.

She switched her sickleseed out for her crushed leek and dropped it systematically into her cauldron, watching Harry the entirety of the time.

Her next words caught him completely off guard.

"If you think I'm an ugly Slytherin bitch, why are you being so kind to me?"

Harry used his index finger to clean out his ear. Surely she didn't just say that. She repeated the question, added her sickleseed.

"I've never called you that." he said softly, adding his own.

"No, but you think it." she cried, biting her lip and stirring her cauldron.

"Why are you acting so weird?" he said stupidly, ignoring a glare from Ron from across the room.

"I think..." said Pansy softly, as Ron turned his attention to Hermione, "I think I love you."

She averted his gaze immediately.

"Class dismissed!" Snape shouted, slamming the door to his office as he ran inside. The rest of the class left in the same speed. Except Ron and Hermione who ran up to question him about why he and Pansy had yet to move.

"I'll meet you outside, guys. Gimme a minute to get packed up."

Reluctantly, they left him. As they turned the door, Harry started to yell,

"You what? What kind of sick joke is that?" he shouted, but reserved himself just enough to keep from being heard by those outside, "Are you trying to get at me for what happened to Malfoy? You're sick." Harry's words bled with poisonous fury.

Pansy left the room crying.

* * *

The next day in charms, he was seated again, very awkwardly, with Pansy. As the class began shouting their incantations, she turned to Harry. 

"I really do think I love you." she said quietly, trying to make certain Dean did not overhear.

As Harry began to shout again, she covered his lips with her own. Feeling the anger sweep out of him, he returned her gesture with passion, wrapping his arms around the small of her back. Her gentle hands ever so softly touching his reddened cheeks.

He was lucky everyone in the room was distracted.

As she pulled out of the kiss, she looked at the beetle in front of her.

"That never happened." she whispered, pulling her wand out and focusing on her beetle.

"Of course not." chimed Harry, doing the same.

"But I do love you." she smiled.

And they kissed again.


End file.
